Occupy Philadelphia will be staging an “End the Silence” march on Saturday, October 29th, to protest corporate control of American politics. The march will spotlight the suppression of the 99% in politics, as well as politicians’ silence on issues that are important to the people. The silent march will depart City Hall at 12:30pm and proceed to Temple University, where former President Bill Clinton will be speaking at a political rally. From Cantor to Clinton, Occupy Philadelphia objects to the domination of American politics by corporate interests. The current system places the power of campaign contributions over the power of […]

ADBUSTERS: For the moment, #OCCUPY has the magic and the ear of the world, and anything seems possible. We could see a soft regime change in America and a resurgence of the political left worldwide. As winter approaches, many occupiers will dig in for the long haul. Others will decamp until spring and channel their energy into myriad projects. Many of the big ideas for rejuvenating and reenchanting the world that have been swirling around the left for the last 20 years will pick up steam. From revoking corporate personhood to de-commercializing the cultural commons, to separating money from politics, […]

UPDATE: Mercurcy News Is Liveblogging The Latest Developments at Ogawa Plaza CBS NEWS: The scene was calm but tense early Wednesday as a crowd of hundreds of protesters dwindled to just a few dozen at the site of several clashes between authorities and supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement a night earlier. Police in riot gear stood watch only a few yards away from a group of stalwart demonstrators in the aftermath of skirmishes in front of City Hall that resulted in five volleys of tear gas from police, in blasts that seemed to intensify with each round, over […]

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: The universe is predisposed to hate this new Lou Reed/Metallica album, Lulu, and I totally understand why. It’s not really designed for people who like music. It sounds like what it is: an elderly misanthrope reciting paradoxical aphorisms over a collection of repetitive, adrenalized sludge licks. Anyone who tries to suggest it’s surprising in any way needs to reexamine his or her propensity for being surprised. I’m sure there will be a sector of Metallica’s core audience that feels “betrayed,” mostly because Metallica fans enjoy the sensation of betrayal.1 I suppose a handful of Lou Reed obsessives will […]

BY PETE MARSHALL “Tritone closing?  Say it ain’t so.  Now where am I gonna play?” By the end of the week, after the word of Tritone closing its doors gets around, countless Philadelphia area bands and musicians will have uttered these words. Take my word for it. Now, I know that Tritone is not the only joint in town. Not by a long shot. In fact there are quite a few good places to play in this old town these days. But with Tritone you can always rely on landing a gig no matter what you’re serving up. The Tritone […]

ABC NEWS: In its effort to shut down California’s booming medical marijuana dispensaries, the Justice Department is seeking to seize the property where the clinics are based, even going after at least one bank that holds the mortgage on a clinic. Chase bank received a letter to evict the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, according to Greg Anton, attorney for the clinic. The bank owns the note on the building in Fairfax, Calif. According to Anton, the bank received a similar letter from U.S. attorney Melinda Haag for the northern district of California that was sent to the Alliance’s landlord […]

NEW YORK TIMES: The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt.In addition, the report said, government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income. “The equalizing effect of federal taxes was smaller” in 2007 than in 1979, as “the composition of federal revenues shifted away from progressive […]

AP reads the speech Eric Cantor was to much of a pussy to read at Wharton on Friday.

BY TONY ABRAHAM Cheltenham resident and Delaware Valley College professor Stephen Tow has just published The Strangest Tribe: How A Group of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge, which is, to date, the definitive history of the Seattle music scene that went from beer-stained garage band obscurity to globally iconic in the space of a few years. Tow digs deep into the pre-historic, establishing the geneology of seminal, but lesser-known pioneers — band like the The U-Men, Green River and the Thrown Ups — that established the aesthetics and infrastructure that eventually made bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam household words […]

FRESH AIR When Steve Jobs died on Oct. 5 from complications of pancreatic cancer, many people felt a sense of personal loss for the Apple co-founder and former CEO. Jobs played a key role in the creation of the Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad — innovative devices and technologies that people have integrated into their daily lives. Jobs detailed how he created those products — and how he rose through the world of Silicon Valley, competed with Google and Microsoft, and helped transform popular culture — in a series of extended interviews with Walter Isaacson, the president […]

RELATED: Investigators are working to discover the extent of the alleged scheme after finding more than 50 Social Security cards, power of attorney documents and other such forms. The suspects may have been taking in the downtrodden and disabled for their Social Security checks, then holding them captive in wretched conditions without enough to eat or drink, police say. MORE RELATED: By the end of 2010, the United States was home to 25 percent of the world’s inmates, with roughly 2.4 million people behind bars and over seven million under “correctional supervision.” In any given year, 13 million people pass […]